Their on-screen chemistry and public friendship has raised questions about their relationship off camera.

Now it seems The One Show host Christine Bleakley has turned down Fern Britton’s spot on This Morning, preferring to continue working with Adrian Chiles instead.

Bleakley and Chiles attended Sunday night’s Bafta Television Awards, and presented the factual series award together.

Reason to stay? Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley pose at the Bafta Television Awards on Sunday night

The 29-year-old Northern Irish presenter confirmed she had been in discussions with This Morning about replacing Britton, who is quitting in July.

She said: ‘I am more than happy at The One Show. [Doing This Morning] would mean getting up very early. I am definitely a night owl. It is a nice thing to be asked but I am very happy where I am for the time being.’

Britton, 51, announced she was leaving the popular daytime show after ten years in March.

Fiona Phillips, Emma Forbes, Ruth Langsford and Gabby Logan are among the other contenders to replace her.

'More than happy': Christine turned down Fern Britton’s spot on This Morning, preferring to continue working with Adrian

Bleakley, who wore a plunging green Amanda Wakely dress, looked relaxed and happy as she posed for photographs with Chiles.

The pair have both split with their long-term partners since working together on The One Show, but have always insisted they are just good friends.

She explained: ‘We are good mates. We work together so much, you have to get along. I think people have bought into the fact we sit on the sofa together, so in some ways that's a compliment.'

Leaving in July: Fern Britton

Last year, speculation about their growing friendship reached fever pitch after they were pictured spending time in a West London flat together.

They were photographed separately arriving at the flat in Kensington, which is understood to be empty and belongs to a relative of Chiles.

The couple spent around an hour there according to media reports.

Chiles, 42, later admitted the situation ‘looked suspicious but was totally innocent’, but was adamant they had just gone there to eat a kebab supper.

‘We were in there for 52 minutes with two mixed kebabs. And if anything else was going on, would we have bothered with the mixed kebabs?,’ he said in an interview with The Times.

He also suggested that Miss Bleakley was out of his league.

'Look at her and look at me! West Brom might quite like to sign Ronaldo but it is simply not going to happen,' he said, alluding to his modest football team and the glamorous Manchester United player.

'As anyone I grew up with would tell you, if anyone was capable of getting Britain's most desirable woman into an empty property and do nothing but eat kebabs, I am that man,' he added.

Bleakley split from her boyfriend Mark Beirne in January, while Chiles's marriage to Radio 4 Woman's Hour presenter Jane Garvey, with whom he has two daughters, broke down a year ago.

He moved out of the family home in Shepherd's Bush, West London and now lives in Chiswick.

The star has said that his friendship with Bleakley had helped him through a difficult year.

'Yes, it has been fundamentally really, really important and mutually beneficial as well,' he said.

'Those working relationships don't grow on trees. I count my blessings on that, although it has caused a certain amount of collateral damage with all the rumours.'